Who was more to blame for the start of the Cold War, the USA or the USSR?

There were many countries involved in the Cold War. However the two main superpowers of the Cold War were the USA and the USSR each of which deserve a large amount of the blame for the starting of the Cold War. Nevertheless, I feel that the USSR should receive most of the blame due to their very aggressive, upfront attitude and many other reasons which will be discussed later on in the essay.

Despite feeling that the USSR were to mostly to blame for the starting of the Cold War, many believe that it was the other way round, that it was in fact the USA who started the Cold War. Truman replaced Roosevelt shortly after he died near the end of World War II. Truman was very suspicious of the Soviet Union which caused a lot of tension between the superpowers. He also greatly feared the spread of communism as he and the USA in general thought that communism was going to – to put it simply, take over the world. They were afraid of communism because there are no classes so everybody is equal and that once communism reaches the USA – who are renowned for their wealth and success, they would lose their power and glory. This again created a lot of tension and many disagreements between the two superpowers.

Truman counteracted the spread of communism throughout Europe. After being informed by the British that they could no longer afford to station troops in Greece and Turkey, where they were helping to fight a civil war against communism, Truman realized that the two countries would almost definitely fall to communism if they were no longer being supported by the British. As a result he decided that he would pay for British troops to stay out there and gave financial support to the two governments. He announced that communism must be ‘contained’ – meaning not spread beyond the countries where communism is already present. This was called ‘The Truman Doctrine’. The Truman Doctrine marked the...

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